Posted January 9, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 2 Comments
Yaaaaay I am LOVING this book of the month! Making chocolate covered strawberry ballet slippers for “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” was lots of fun and weirdly cathartic (there’s just something really satisfying about dipping a strawberry in chocolate). I also can’t wait for you guys to see the recipe I have planned for this Thursday.
With all fun I’ve had thus far, it won’t come as a surprise that I really enjoyed designing this tea! I decided a while back that I’d base the tea on whichever fairy tale got the most votes in our December poll, and “Hansel and Gretel” blew the others away. I was glad, because I knew if that story won, I wanted to make a tea inspired by the witch’s gingerbread cottage.
It turned out exactly as I hoped: cozy and sweet with a strong spiced flavor reminiscent of a gingerbread cookie. So brew a cup or two and grab a book of fairy tales to read as you sip!
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Posted January 4, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 3 Comments
In December, I asked you guys to vote on which fairy tales you wanted to see in my Brothers’ Grimm menu this month, and “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” was in one of the top spots. I was thrilled, since this was one of my favorite stories growing up, and I had a great idea for a recipe: white chocolate-covered strawberry ballet slippers! I’ve seen them done in pink on Pinterest, so to make them more my own, I did them in a variety of colors and set them up as 12 distinct pairs of shoes. I love how bright and cheery the final slippers looked!
I normally do an appetizer as my first dish each month, but even though these are a little too sweet to be a true appetizer, they were just too fun to pass up! In fact, they’re easy enough that I’d recommend them as a fun activity for older children (maybe 8 years old and up). It makes me wish we had a little ballet dancer in the family so I could make them for a birthday party! 🙂
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Posted January 2, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Reading Kits / 0 Comments
I’ve wanted to make a Grimm’s fairy tale menu ever since I started this blog, so it’s no exaggeration to say I’ve been looking forward to this for years. When I decided to start the month off with a Grimm’s fairy tale reading kit, I dove right in, but it actually took me FOREVER to put this list together. There were just SO MANY options! I sifted through dozens of items inspired by princesses, fairies, dragons, gnomes, and trolls (not to mention stuff related to specific fairy tales like Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood). In the end, I came up with a list of fun, creative items you’ll want to be sure to have with you when you head off into your nearby enchanted forest—whether you’re a little girl off to visit her grandmother or a woodsman’s seventh son off to seek his fortune.
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Posted December 28, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments
I was bummed when I saw that December doesn’t have a fifth Thursday this year, which meant I wouldn’t be able to do a Grinch Who Stole Christmas bonus recipe. Still, when I sat down to decide whether I should make Who Pudding or Green Grinch Hot Chocolate as my dessert this month, I simply couldn’t choose. So I made both!
The pudding is based on a delicious homemade chocolate pudding recipe from Moms Need to Know (I also used some tips from Bunny’s Warm Oven). Of course, you can just add some food coloring to instant pudding if you want, but what kind of a food blog would I didn’t give real, from-scratch chocolate pudding a try? As for the hot chocolate, it’s a peppermint version of the white hot chocolate that’s going to appear in my cookbook next year!
So if you’re not quite ready for Christmas to be over, cook up some rich, chocolatey Who pudding and steaming Green Grinch Hot Chocolate for a sweet winter treat. 🙂
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Posted December 26, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Holidays / 2 Comments
Every year on my anniversary, I like to write a post that reflects on one aspect of my wedding and highlights its wider significance to my marriage. On my first anniversary, I wrote about my wedding ring; year two, the flowers in my bouquet; and year three, the priest’s sermon. I was planning on telling the story about my wedding dress this year, but as I was hanging the jingle bell ornaments on our Christmas tree, I realized that this is a perfect year to talk about the special significance of those bells.
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Posted December 21, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments
Is this more of an appetizer than a side dish? Probably. As soon as I started planning my Grinch Who Stole Christmas menu, I knew I wanted to incorporate Grinch hearts, but I wasn’t exactly sure how. It wasn’t until early this past week that I decided on making fruit skewers with dip, and by then I’d already made Who Hash for my appetizer. So here they are as a side dish! In the end, all that matters is that they’re delicious, right? 😉
And they definitely ARE delicious—easy too! Just cut your strawberries into shape with a small heart cookie cutter and slice the ends off your grapes at an angle. Slide them on a skewer, and you’re done! The fruit dip is easy too. It’s got a tasty coconut yogurt base blended with cream cheese and honey for added creaminess and sweetness. It’s a sweet snack you can feel great about eating, Grinch or not!
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Posted December 20, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Holidays / 1 Comment
I love a good cookie exchange. It’s a great chance to experiment with something new or whip up a crowd-pleasing classic. A couple years ago I made pumpkin madeleines with cream cheese frosting for a cookie exchange by riffing on my go-to madeleine recipe, and I was oh so pleased by how well they were received (definitely one of my prouder baking moments).
Sadly, I won’t have a chance to attend any exchanges this year, but I volunteered to bring some homemade cookies to my family’s Christmas get together. I decided to make Jo’s Christmas gingerbread from my Little Women menu. They couldn’t be more festive, and gingerbread is a favorite treat of the Little Mister (while I was recipe testing for my cookbook, he ate all the limbs off a poor gingerbread man before we could stop him).
Cookie exchange or not, I figure I’m not the only one who wants to try a fun new cookie recipe for the holidays. I’ve made loads of book-inspired cookies in the past that are perfect for Christmas, so I decided to share a few of them below! There’s Jo’s gingerbread of course, but also Sherlock Holmes’ brandy snaps, Romeo and Juliet’s Italian sandwich cookies, and many more. So bake up some bookish fun for Christmas! Your bibliophile friends will thank you. 🙂
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Posted December 19, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Reading Kits / 1 Comment
Grinch-themed things are all over the internet this time of year, so when it came time to put together my Grinch Who Stole Christmas reading kit, inspiration was everywhere! Of course, I didn’t want to throw together a list of Hallmark ornaments and pajama pants and call it a day. I wanted something a little more thoughtful. So I hunted high and low for what I consider to be the most unique, high quality Grinchy gifts. I found festive candles, Grinch-Starbucks crossover mugs, funny shirts, and so much more!
So read on, and let your Grinch flag fly! 😉
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Posted December 14, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments
Ah, the roast beast! This wouldn’t be a Grinch Who Stole Christmas menu without it, right? When I first started planning this menu, I instantly knew we’d have roast beast for an entree, but I wasn’t sure what form it would take.
My first goal was to figure out exactly what kind of beast we’re talking about here. In the book, it’s drawn with what could be a hoof or a trotter, which had me thinking beef or pork. However, it also has what could be a tuft on its tail (or a chop holder like you see on lamb shank crown roasts). It DOES say the beast is rare, though this could be in reference to it scarcity, rather than its cook time. I’m sure all this vagueness was a deliberate choice on Seuss’s part, since the Whos would most likely be eating an imaginary animal, but it wasn’t super helpful from a meal-planning perspective. Since the source material left it pretty open-ended, I decided to go with beef, since it’s a hooved animal like the picture and can be cooked rare.
Instead of a pot roast recipe (which I’ve done before), I decided to try something different: roast beef sandwiches! I was intrigued by the idea of making French dip sandwiches in the slow cooker, which I hadn’t tried before, so I tracked down a great recipe from Celebrating Sweets and whipped it right up.
It was delicious and super easy! The broiled provolone drapes the juicy beef and tender onions in a blanket of cheesy goodness, and the French rolls soak up the au jus perfectly—making them soft and flavorful without falling apart. I am SO making this again soon! 🙂
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Posted December 12, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 1 Comment
Our Tea of the Month is here, and of course it had to be something Christmasy! 🙂 Adagio Teas (the company I use to design my teas) offers lots of festive options, such as gingerbread, chestnut, and a Christmas spiced tea. I’ve used several of these in the past and wanted something different, so I decided to start with their candy cane tea. With the sweet peppermint flavor as a base, I knew I could go in two directions: further sweeten in with a chocolate tea or balance the sweetness with a bit of lemon tea. I tried both and loved it with lemon! Grab a tin of this for Christmas to share with friends, and if you feel your heart grow a couple sizes, don’t worry. That’s normal. 😉
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